Completed To Build A Home

[Trevor Hightly]

Date: 56th of Summer, 517 A.V.
Time: Early Morning

"So you're wanting to get out of that tent, eh?" Randal inquired

The carpenter was strong, tall, and ruggedly attractive. His body was toned from a life of work, his hands and skin noticeably rough and dense from the same.

In comparison, the young man that stood before him was thin, of relatively average height, and had somewhat pointed features.

"Well," Trevor chuckled, "I do, but I've never really even picked up a hammer--but I'm willing to. I'm even willing to learn how to swing it."

Randal nodded and a slight smile formed on the edges of his lips. The man's eyes were calm, thoughtful, deep and empathetic--those of a leader. Randal's demeanor spoke of grizzled strength, upon which a kind spirit was layered and interwoven within.

"If that's true, then we're going to need tools," Randal said. "And more than hammers too."

"We could hike up to the general store if you need me to get anything for myself?" Trevor suggested.

Randall slipped the straps of a backpack off of his shoulders, as Trevor made the offer to acquire a set of tools if need be.

"No, you'll be fine for today," Randal waved away Trevor's concerns.

The carpenter went down on to one knee, as he dislodged his pack from his person and placed it upon the open dirt. Randal flipped open the bag's flap and began to dig within it. The rather large backpack was home to a number of very grizzled and well-preserved pieces of building and wilderness tools, but Randal ignored the bulk of said items as he searched within it.

The carpenter seemed to know just what he was looking for within his crowded bag--and Trevor wasn't all that surprised, despite it being packed to the brim, Randal's backpack look relatively organized.

"Here we are then," Randal said, as he withdrew a wide roll of leather that was about as long as his pack was deep.

The man momentarily shifted the roll of leather into the crux of his arm, before moving his backpack to the side of his left leg and laying the leather roll down to where it had been sitting in front of himself. And then, with but a push, Randall let the roll of leather unfurl upon the ground.

The roll was slow to open because of its weight, but when it did it settled heavily on the ground and a great spread of tools were revealed to be lurking, stored within its confines.

"Most folks around here are willing to get their hands dirty when I help them out, so..." Randal selected and hefted up one of two, large axes that now lay before him on the unfurled leather roll into his hands, "I have two."

Randal offered the axe to Trevor.

"It's a woodcutting axe; stronger and heavier than a hatchet, but probably lighter than anything you might expect from something that fells trees," Randal explained.

Trevor took the tool from Randal; it wasn't the first time he'd seen an axe, or even held one, but it was the first time he'd held this specific type of axe. The wood of the bladed tool, despite being sanded down, still felt odd and a bit rough to Trevor's relatively soft hands.

"I appreciate it," Trevor said. "I was hoping we could build something simple today, something that I could replicate myself?"

"Really? Are you looking to learn?" Randal inquired, as he retrieved an axe for himself from the tool roll.

"I'd like to be able to get the basics down, if you're willing to teach me while I help you get something for me to sleep in situated and built," Trevor said. "I'd like to be able to help myself as much as possible while I'm here."

"Hm," Randal said. "Will you help me roll this back up? Just grab that end there."

As Randal had directed, Trevor reached out for the end of the leather tool roll.

"Of course," Trevor replied to Randal.

The carpenter grabbed ahold of the opposite end of the roll.

"All right, just roll while I pull, if you would," Randal instructed.

It wasn't long before together the two had re-rolled Randal's tool kit and the man had fit it back within his backpack.

"Alright," Randal said, with his axe in hand, as both he and Trevor rose to stand once more. "Let's get to teaching you to lash together a home, shall we?"

Trevor couldn't help but smirk a bit, upon realizing that Randal was receptive to his request for tutelage.

"Sure thing," Trevor replied in a confident tone. "And thank you."

Seasonal Wordcount: 12,587 + 780 = 13,367

[Trevor Hightly]

Date: 56th of Summer, 517 A.V.
Time: Early Morning

Randal led himself and Trevor a little ways into Syka's surrounding jungle, not so far as to make the hauling of any wood back to Trevor's homestead terribly difficult, but still a good bit away from it.

Trevor followed the carpenter, making small talk along the way, as the pair waded through the many shrubs, and flowers, and fungi of the open jungle.

"So, what we are we looking for, if you don't mind me asking?" Trevor inquired.

Randal kept his eyes on the surrounding area for the most part but did glance back to his traveling partner ever so often to acknowledge or respond to the young man.

"We just don't have the manpower to haul large trees right now," Randal explained. "So, we're looking for the smaller ones that grow near the forest floor."

"The young ones?" Trevor inquired.

"Most likely, but some of them might be a bit older. The shorter trees are usually the children of the trees above them, but the real reason that they're so small is that they're trapped under the canopy and aren't getting as much light as their parents are--so they stay small for a long time," Randal explained.

Trevor listened intently; he hadn't expected to get a botany lesson from Randal, but what he was hearing was nonetheless welcomed by Trevor as he had taken an interest in the natural world as of late.

"But they still grow?" Trevor inquired.

"They do," Randal replied. "Just a lot more slowly. I'm sure you've noticed, but a lot of the trees around here are tall, very tall really. The settlement's forest is much thicker than those around in Sylira, because of that it's a bit unique."

Trevor looked around himself, at the massive brown giants that were strewn all about.

"I can definitely see what you're talking about," Trevor stated. "At least we have a lot of resources out here, though, right?"

Randal chuckled at Trevor's statement.

"A lot of danger too, but you're not wrong about what you said. Once we get a mil and an operation to haul timber put together, we'll have all the wood we could ever need. It's just that the trees here are either usually too massive for us to haul or too short for real construction," Randal said and stopped walking.

Trevor stopped behind the man.

Strewn out before the pair was a more open area of the jungle, where bushes, ferns, and a number of small trees had just enough light to grow by. Trevor took special note of the aforementioned short trees, as he surveyed Randal's chosen destination.

Trevor stepped up beside Randal.

"So we're here for those right?" Trevor gestured to the smaller trees.

Randal raised an eyebrow and Trevor noted the man's curiosity and laughed good-heartedly and humbly in reply to it.

"It's just that you said we can only really use the short ones," Trevor said, in reference to the trees.

"We're here for them alright," Randal said in an approving tone.

"Come on, let's walk over to them," the carpenter said and led Trevor over to one member of the small bunch of short trees.

"Do you know how to swing at one?" Randal inquired and indicated the tree he'd approached.

Trevor's face morphed to show doubt.

"No, not really," he said. "Could you show me?"

"Alright then, just stand back," Randal instructed. "Go over to that one so you can try after though."

Trevor did as he was instructed and waded through the jungle's undergrowth, to stand beside a nearby tree that was out of the range of Randal's presumably powerful axe-swing.

"So you just need to cut at an angle," Randal explained.

Without any hesitation, but going slow enough to allow Trevor to see, Randal lifted his arms and drove his axe into the small tree that dared to stand before him.

"And then you cut below your first knick at that same angle but flipped," Randal said.

The man drew his arms back once more and hit the tree under where he'd cut originally. His cuts left somewhat of a triangular pattern in the wood of the tree's trunk.

Randal looked back to Trevor, axe-in hand.

"You try," Randal suggested.

"Okay, I think I got it from that," Trevor replied.

Trevor turned to face the tree that he'd walked over to previously. He did his best to translate what he'd seen Randal do into his own muscles, trying to translate images in his mind into motion in his limbs. And sure enough, within a single grouping of seconds, Trevor had delivered his first swing against a tree; his axe echoed and rattled as it cracked into the wood.

Seasonal Wordcount: 792 + 13,367 = 14,159

[Trevor Hightly]

Date: 56th of Summer
Time: Early-Morning

Randal had removed his backpack--which now sat a short distance away against the trunk of a wide and ancient tree--and was now busy at work, chopping into his second tree.

Trevor, meanwhile, did his best to both work, breathe, and listen to the carpenter talk.

"We really don't need that many at all," Randal said. "Ten of these small ones should be more than enough."

Trevor brought his axe back over his shoulder and heaved into the tree that he was working on cutting through. In reality, the tree wasn't even that thick, only about half-as thick as your average person's forearm. Trevor and Randal had only been chopping for a few minutes and already both were mostly through their first tree. Nonetheless, the experience of shifting his weight into an axe was new for Trevor, and sweat was already beginning to pool under his shirt.

"Well," Trevor said and then paused to take another swing, "that's not too terribly bad."

Trevor was getting dangerously close to making it through his tree. Randal, meanwhile, was already through his first; as Trevor was speaking, the carpenter's axe made its way through its mark.

Being as light and as thin as it was, Randal was more than capable of guiding the felled tree down with the hand that he was not holding his axe with; the carpenter directed the tree down to lay flat on the forest floor.

Trevor glanced over to Randal, upon hearing the ruckus that the carpenter was creating with his actions.

"You've got one?" Trevor inquired.

Randal adjusted his felled tree one last time, before standing up.

"It's not that bad, once you get into the rut of it," Randal commented.

Trevor glanced to the gash that he'd made in the tree he'd been cutting. The man then pulled his axe back and struck hard, cleaving right into the tree, severing its last little bit of hold on itself, and cutting it completely in two.

"There you are!" Randal said encouragingly.

As his tree fell, Trevor did his best to catch it.

"Woah there! Just guide it down. Don't fight it, steady it as it goes," Randal explained in a mostly amused voice.

Trevor readjusted himself and allowed the tree to fall into the ground. The young man adjusted wood and then rose.

"Eight more, then," Trevor commented heartily, with sweat now beginning to bead on his brow.

Seasonal Wordcount: 347 + 14,159 = 14,506

[Trevor Hightly]

Date: 56th of Summer
Time: Mid-Morning

Trevor leaned against the handle of his axe while balancing the tool's head against the jungle floor. He was sweating now, there was no doubt about it; he was not abjectly exhausted or anything of that nature, nor was he even really truly tired in any sense, but he was certainly feeling the strain of the day's work.

"You through that last one yet?" Randal inquired from a way's away.

"Yeah, almost," Trevor called back to the carpenter.

He hadn't lied to Randal, he was almost done cutting through the last of the trees that they needed. They'd been cutting down some of Syka's shortest trees for the past hour or so; which, in all honesty, were not too hard to get through. Of course, Trevor was not used to the jungle heat, nor to hard manual labor of any kind--but his body was learning, it was being forced to, and it was hurting a fair and decent amount for its trouble.

Glancing over and seeing that Randal had already hacked through his last tree, Trevor felt the need to hurry on and get back to working on his own. The young man straightened himself and shifted the handle of his borrowed axe back into both of his sore and red hands.

Trevor reared his axe back and hit the half-felled tree before him once, and then again, and then again. The young man was gaining a healthy respect for demanding labor and a bit of a liking for it; his body was beginning to feel winded yes, but there also a strangely satisfying feeling to occupy the mind with the body and work. Trevor was also very excited about the prospect of learning to create a dwelling with only his own two hands, putting him a generally favorable mood.

Having guided down his last tree, Randal began making his way over to Trevor from across the jungle clearing.

Trevor slammed his axe into his tree once again, as the carpenter approached him, but this time its bark splintered and it began to crack loudly and to fall.

Trevor grasped his axe and took a deep breath, as a drop of sweat fell from his chin. The tree that he'd dropped hit the dirt and its force was absorbed by the jungle's ample and ever-present undergrowth.

"Good, we're through with the simple part then," Randal said from beside Trevor.

Seasonal Wordcount: 406 + 14,506 = 14,912

[Trevor Hightly]

Date: 56th of Summer
Time: Mid-Morning

"You know, I don't mind this so much," Trevor said to Randal.

"Hard work can be its own type of reward," Randal replied. "Although, I find that the best reward for a day's labor is the deep sleep that a tired body can find at night."

Trevor contemplated the man's words and took stock of his own current condition; he was beginning to feel fatigue setting into his muscles and body for sure.

"Well, I don't think that will be much of a problem for me tonight," Trevor said.

"Come on," Randal said, with a smile, and bade Trevor follow him with a wave of his hand.

Randal led Trevor across the clearing, causing the pair to step over a number of the almost-dozen trees that they'd cut down. It became clear to Trevor, after a few moments, that Randal was leading him back to where the carpenter had left his backpack.

"So, what's next?" Trevor inquired. "How do we get the trees back?"

Randal leaned down before his backpack and placed his axe onto the ground only long enough to remove his leather tool roll from his pack once more.

"That's the not so simple part of the job," Randal commented.

Randal spread his tool roll out upon the ground once more. The carpenter placed his axe within the kit and gestured for Trevor to give his up as well. Trevor offered the carpenter the axe he held without a fight, although he had to admit that he had grown fond of how it fit into his hands--even despite the fact that the tool had left his palms somewhat raw from its use.

"So there's a hard part?" Trevor inquired.

"Oh there's a few," Randal chuckled, "but I think they're worth what you get out of them in the end."

Randal left his tool kit unrolled and reached inside his backpack. The carpenter removed two spools of rope, one which appeared particularly quite thick and long.

"We're using rope?" Trevor wondered aloud.

"To tie the wood together and to haul it back to your land, yes we are," Randal said. "And we have a bit of a job ahead of us doing it."

Seasonal Wordcount: 370 + 14,912 = 15,282